Adam Thorn Writing

Tuesday, 21 November 2017

The boys, these jokers,
looked back bemused. Or was it baffled? With hindsight, that look
grabbed Daniel by the throat. It was terror. The crowd, already at
capacity swelled towards the back, trying to evade whatever was
eating away at its front ranks. As the crush briefly receded like the
tide; ebb and flow, he could see there was nowhere to go. The danger
upfront, thrashing it's way into the crowd, high concrete walls on
two sides, and outward opening doors on the school side meant the
weight of the rush just crushed into cold, unsympathetic inanimate
brickwork and concrete. The back was last to be hit. Bodies under
bodies.

Grabbing Alan and
Matthew, and screaming something he'd never repeat correctly again,
they rushed just ahead of the back of the panic. People began falling
and pushing, the fight had become larger it seemed, a squall of fists
and anger. A sea of blue became a melee, as the three boys pushed
their way towards what Daniel hoped, was the one climbable wall.
Three feet of concrete with a six foot wooden fence and some chain
link contraption above that.

Monday, 13 November 2017

All in blue blazers,
the class were subdued. Hunched over desks, dulled as beings now, no
light fell on the poor souls in this hardest of winters. A sea of
disinterest. Skies outside were grey, but the radiators were blazing,
fighting the oppressive cold; unusually accurate timing by the
school. This peculiar warmth was making the boys sleepy. Sleepier.
This class were less interested than normal. Not only was the country
gripped in fear of African Flu, but they were stuck in history class,
which was far worse.

Through the window a
few trees moved, slowly, and a lot of concrete didn't move at all; as
Daniel remembered. A disinterested sky. The heavens don't care,
whatever they told you at school. Particularly this school. Daniel
could see down the hill, he thought, over the school buildings which
stuck together like concrete cancer. A sterile landscape, robbed of
personality. Maybe a man staggered by, maybe he didn't. It was hard
to be sure now, his view hadn't been great. This stupid little school
with its stupid teachers and Catholic bullshit, That was all Daniel
really remembered of that part of that day. That and boredom.

Sunday, 10 September 2017

Two men stalked the side of the semi detached house, like burglars on the prowl. Fat, wrapped against the cold, unlikely burglars. It is daylight in the city, hardly burglary hour. Their method is similar to that of a thief, stay quiet and do not get caught. Although they are looking to take, it is not from the living. Quite what “living” is, these days, is open to debate. Depending on your disposition. The only conventional living people they have met are boarded up and shoo them off hurriedly; they’ve been meeting less of these people of late.

The other “alive” housing occupants wander their halls, decaying and trying to get out, bouncing angrily off their old life. Life. These houses should be treated with caution. Empty houses are better. Or houses with corpses which aren’t animate. There are dead outside the houses, too, walking. This is why they work at day. Danger from an animate assailant is another real concern, but one they’ve calculated. The men crawl silently up to the door and crouch by the letterbox. John is older than Stephen by ten years or so, making him around fifty. Both are physically imposing and sport heavy stubble. Stephen peeked through into the house.

Friday, 18 August 2017

Boxing has been my staple while staying in Las Vegas. It has sustained me, given me meaning and distracted me from what Vegas appears to be. Despite all the fun I've had with the boys and things I've experienced which I wouldn't in the UK, as you've probably guessed, Las Vegas ain't somewhere I was built for. Except the weather. Man I love that heat. The guys (Josh and Asinia) had been getting up super early to do some training which sounded super good for them, but super boring for me. Despite being a boxing nut I have disabilities, and one of those is not giving a flying fuck if no punches or egg shaped balls are involved*. As well as not liking 5am.

Saturday, 12 August 2017

After what was honestly something of a disappointment that Vegas is not really for me, I felt had to move on. I'm here for two weeks. I’m aware I may have put the disappointment in slightly stronger terms in previous posts. I’d thought I might really like it, if I don’t know me by now, I never will. Which is a whole other problem I’ll deal with shortly after my last breath. So it was on, on, on to the next one.

The next one happened to be boxing, fortunately. The sole reason I’d come here, which was a consolation to me. I do not box, but then neither does Conor McGregor and that’s not stopping him coming to Las Vegas on a high. I also have a scheduled spar with Hollywood Josh. Which will be fun. Hellraiser, through Mickey’s connections, are encamped at Floyd Mayweather’s gym, which is pretty obviously a centre for excellence. Sam Fleetwood had a youngster called Tyler, lovely boxer, who took on an eleven year old with more belts than I own pants. That’s not a good comparison. But you get the idea, even the eleven year olds there are bastard good.

Thursday, 10 August 2017

I am now unbound by writing for work. So expect more expletives, and honesty. All my own opinion, with added grumpiness.

Our long walk on the day of arrival around the epicentre of the madness that is Las Vegas taught me that while the Strip is a marvel, it is not marvellous. I don’t like clubbing or shopping and it is essentially one huge hybrid of those things.

However, there’s plenty more to Las Vegas than the strip. I hoped. I had to hope. I was raised Catholic, it’s all we had, and it has stuck. Before I could explore beyond gaudy ground zero, though, I had to contend with a sore throat and a general overwhelming feeling of lethargy. I've never travelled 8 hours (and arguably 40 years) into the past before. We went to the gym we’d wandered into on the Thursday evening on Friday, and beforehand got some breakfast at a diner/ burger type place. I had already worked out that eating was going to be a problem for two reasons. Firstly, I have lost a stone and a half lately and would like to not undo that hard work; they put cheese on salads here. Secondly, and more importantly, due to the pound being weaker than a hospice tug ‘o’ war team everywhere is costly to eat. Everywhere.